


All Eternity

by wisteriawall



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Guardian Angels, Hurt/Comfort, Pregnancy, Tragedy, maternal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26515033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisteriawall/pseuds/wisteriawall
Summary: Finnick lives, but Annie doesn't, settling to watch over him and their son from a world beyond.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	All Eternity

To sit there and watch her old life tick by was painful. She tried not to get involved, letting Finnick do what he needed to do. After all, it was so exhausting to use her new form to interact with the earthly realm. Who knows when she would run out of energy and be unable to return? Why was she here now?

Her last living memories were cold and scary, devoid of the compassion she so craved. A pregnancy that had tested boundaries. Nearly every single risk factor for preterm birth was there. She was young, petite, and quite genuinely starving when she conceived.

And so, because nothing in her life had ever gone according to plan, she had gone into labor early. It was a cool seven weeks before she was due when she’d been standing in the kitchen one moment, bothering Finnick while he cooked their dinner, and then the next moment a sharp pain shot through her. They’d rushed to the hospital, a laboring Annie carried in Finnick’s arms, and been given a room almost immediately.

It was a long process. Medicines to slow labor down, to keep them going a few more weeks, and then medicines to speed it up once her water had broken, all stomached by the young woman clutching her husband’s hand with a strength she didn’t know she had. She’d pushed and pushed— and then the heart rate dropped. An emergency cesarean and traumatic half hour or so later, they have a son.

He’s given the name Ronan, laid on Annie’s chest, and they enjoy several minutes of being a family. It was happy, they were happy, and Finnick had no clue just how much he should have valued those moments. Kisses were shared between the three members, coos of congratulations and thank yous are passed out, and the slow blurring of the room began as Annie felt her world fading away. What she could still feel, though was the way her blood pressure plummeted and how it coincided with the wetness growing between her legs. And yet, stubborn as ever, she hadn’t said a word, desperate to keep the happiness intact. They had a tiny yet otherwise healthy baby, he was alive, and they were all together. She didn’t want to ruin that.

It’s when the monitors hooked up to her start beeping that Ronan was torn from her arms, pushed into Finnick’s, and she felt her life force being taken away. She screamed their names, and Finnick called for her. She can’t see him, though, as doctors and nurses swarm, blocking her already dimming view. The end is quick but painless, and Annie grew cold.

Without any true corporeal form, she watched them. It was her house, after all, and she clearly hadn’t fulfilled whatever purpose she was meant to. It hurt her heart to see Finnick struggling. He'd lost everyone in the span of a year, and all people kept telling him was that he should feel lucky because he at least had a piece of his wife remaining with him. Annie disagreed. The screaming, premature infant was not the same gentle reminder that people seemed to imply, taking care of a child was not helpful to the mourning process.

Though it isn’t much, she did what she could. Her presence in a room, an image of herself that proves just slightly transparent, untouchable. But she was sure that Ronan felt her. When she used her energy (it was a practiced skill to be able to appear, even for moments at a time. Something she built up to sustain for several minutes) to visit the nursery, it was always dark. Watching the baby when Finnick was asleep, doing her part as a mother as much as she physically could. He always looked at her, would coo and reach, clearly recognizing her presence after several months of watching him grow. He would fall asleep when she murmured little Spanish lullabies and lean into the cool touch of her spirit when she reached out to caress his face. It was good. She needed this as much as he did.

One night, the house felt different. She didn’t watch over them like she had as a mentor in the games but rather felt as though she was both within and without the house. Able to feel their presence and understand what was happening. The office she once occupied regularly was no longer empty— he had gone in. Dusted off the books of poetry, journals scribbled with notes and stained with coffee and scented with the sea and candles and Annie.

She threw open the window, causing the ivory-colored gauzy curtains to fly into the room with a sea breeze. Always one for the dramatics. As they settle, she is standing there in front of him. Twenty four, no traces of pregnancy, naked aside from the covering her long hair provided, though the nudity held no sexuality. How she pictured herself rather than how she died; something unequivocally Annie. Despite those elements, she was pale, translucent, and dull. Beautiful, but not real. She reached out to touch his face. Not quite walking, and not quite floating either, but transiting in another intersecting plane of existence.

A cold rush would befall him, though her hands couldn’t be felt in a traditional sense. In the same way, she kissed his forehead, settling at eye level to him. One final cold, stationary kiss to his lips. “You are doing so well,” she told him and was shocked to hear that his words hardly made sense to her. It felt as though he were speaking through water. Another world.

Still, she can read his intentions. Gentle words of a precious moment. He loved her, and she loved him. He had told her that, insisted he knew she was there, and she’d nodded. They were both teary-eyed, though Annie’s didn’t actually exist. Just a sad, pained smile so filled with love that she thought she might burst. 

Her mind flew back through the years. They had always been meant for each other, shoved together by fate time and time again, even if they’d only accepted it once Annie had been reaped. They were many things to one another. The girl from the net shop. The boy who won at fourteen. The girl who sat at the pier despite not knowing how to fish. The boy who had come into her shop alone after being orphaned, and who she’d given a hug as an apology. It all clicked together, they were always in love. Had been for millennia, she thought. And would be forevermore. 

“What if I told you that I’ve been in love with you for all eternity?” 

He seemed to understand, and so did she. Energy faded as they continued to stand there in silence. There was nothing to be said, no use in wasting energy on saying things they both know. Better to wait and soak in each other’s presence as she faded away once more.


End file.
